Red-tailed hawk

Push your face into mine like a nesting bird 

summer two baby raccoons on the side of the road

asleep in the morning, split open by noon

as bumblebees tumbled over weeds in the garden

and diesel spilled in the driveway.

A spring hawk tweedles, chatters on

rust-brown through the trees,

food forgotten, as if she could ever forget,

how we sat quiet in a simulated Himalayan wind-tunnel

she was still,

her long black hair and soft brown feathers 

watching the grass,

then she struck -- 

my mom's best friend

painting with her favorite red.

(push your face into mine like a nesting bird summer two baby raccoons on the side of the road asleep in the morning split open by noon as bumblebees tumbled over weeds in the garden and diesel spilled in the driveway a spring hawk tweedles chatters on rust-brown through the trees food forgotten as if she could ever forget how we sat quiet in a simulated Himalayan wind-tunnel she was still her long black hair and soft brown feathers watching the grass then she struck we watched her through the window)

They should invent a machine

They should invent a machine that grabs you and flings you around a bare sterile room with a crane arm industrial that comes from the ceiling a blank white expanse. It should be able to catch the back of your shirt and toss you straight up and catch you across the stomach with its arm and knock the wind out of you mouth agape :O gasping breathing openfaced fish not a teeth only a tube to the other end. Metalblocked interrupted flow it should evacuate your air tire pump pressure. It should catch you when you slide off the arm drooling emptymouthed. It should be soft too and delicate when it needs. It should have spindly fingers at the end of the arm perfectly straight in the round thin like the tongs on a fork and pluck you from the space by the ankle dangle bloodless. It should squeeze from the head to the bottom of the feet to put you back in order and click click twisting wind up the ticking pulse in your neck. It should be safe it should be love it should throw you up and over again and never let you fall.

Swan

I'm hurrying past a woman in a long teal puffer coat when her perfume hits me: something jasmine, indolic and night-climbing. It faintly registers as sexy though I don't want her at all.  I read somewhere that the indole used in synthetic jasmine mimics animal shit at full strength but in low concentrations somewhere in the human brain it is associated with desire, somewhere deep and animalic and gross. 

I don't even think to associate the woman with her perfume, it comes disembodied and almost clinical or academic. She turns the corner and is gone. I hope someone is intoxicated by her, or finds her in her jasmine.

There is a swan I've been watching by the canal for a few days ever since I saw it biting a man's shoes on the dock. Yesterday it slept in the middle of the sidewalk, its beak tucked into its wing. Across the canal I saw two girls stop and look at it for a while. I think they were wondering (like I was) whether it was dead. The massive, elegant white creature became just a big lump of feathers, a roadblock. Pigeons clattered around it. People stepped off the sidewalk to avoid it. It felt terrible and wasteful. 

I walked by, but I was scared to look at it too closely in case it was really dead. I imagined what a swan would look like without feathers and I couldn't. I couldn't think how much volume would be missing; how skinny the neck must be. It made me feel voyeuristic and uncomfortable like picturing a human being naked. I didn't stop to check if it was alive or not. I walked past and did not see it again when I came home.

This morning I saw it again, sleeping in the same way, its beak tucked into its wing. It was off of the sidewalk this time, closer to the canal in a flat patch of grass where I'd seen people pitch their tents some nights. 

Somehow it being off of the sidewalk assured me that it was comfortable. I assumed it was the same swan and felt relieved that it was alive, just a day-sleeper (apparently). I went down to where it was sleeping and watched it a while to be sure. Its breathing was so deep and steady and soft I almost cried for some reason. Its feathers did not move, only the whole structure of the bird breathed. I left once I saw it breathing; I didn't want to disturb it. 

On the last day

It swells and crashes
goes from hot heavy-pregnant wet
to cold, whipping, white peaks and things
equal to rise
lower to drop
and I keep drinking seawater
I keep sticking out my tongue and licking it
off my hands and arms
a salt-lick would they put iodine in my skin
and the girl on the beach watching my bags
looks just like me
if I sat on a sun-rock
dipping popcorn into dried salt
in the little empty tide pools 
and the fish wriggled
and the sand grit between my teeth

Queering the Map in Gaza

Diary entry

This morning I wished to be reborn and not for any genuine reason only that I'm bored and obligated. I swam in the ocean and tasted the salt of embryonic fluid (I imagine it is salty) and thought about performance and thought I could live in the cradle of the mountains in some sort of bush of purple flowers. Earlier today I was afraid of a barking dog behind a fence; I curled up inside myself and crossed the street and put my eyes down so it would know I'm not a threat. No, I could only live the life I am right now.

My friends

I like the way your face looks lit up from underneath by the neon light of the tap,
every little glittery yellow star in the dark room reflected in your beer, the panes of the windows circling, waving, wiggling when you wave your glass.

I have eaten a lemon cake with strings in my ears, resonant sliding and wind stretching the skin between my ribs--

for months when I was a kid I dreamed only of flying practice -- a bright green grassy hill, a blue sky like a default desktop background. The wind is harsh and whipping, my T-shirt some kind of parachute-- l spread my arms out and wait and breathe, feel it could happen on any exhale, l will be sucked up into the air and whirled around on a jet stream.

l become conscious that l'm doing it and then I try too hard; I get frustrated and wake up.

When I hear crickets I think about chasing fireflies and catching them on our hands,  ordinary bugs brown and sweet and harmless, crawling over our fingers, letting them fly off. Watching our steps in the wet grass. I would sleep with my head on your shoulder, but then where would yours go? I picture our hard skulls phasing through each others', our hair tangling together.

I forget I'm full of water until I see you again.